I Am a Strange Loop

By: Douglas R Hofstadter

Narrated by: Greg Baglia

One of our greatest philosophers and scientists of the mind asks, where does the self come from -- and how our selves can exist in the minds of others. Can thought arise out of matter? Can self, soul, consciousness, "I" arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here? I Am a Strange Loop argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the "strange loop"-a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. The most central and complex symbol in your brain is the one called "I." The "I" is the nexus in our brain, one of many symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse. How can a mysterious abstraction be real-or is our "I" merely a convenient fiction? Does an "I" exert genuine power over the particles in our brain, or is it helplessly pushed around by the laws of physics? These are the mysteries tackled in I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas Hofstadter's first book-length journey into philosophy since Gödel, Escher, Bach. Compulsively readable and endlessly thought-provoking, this is a moving and profound inquiry into the nature of mind.

Critic reviews

"[F]ascinating... original and thought-provoking.... [T]here are many pleasures in I Am a Strange Loop."--Wall Street Journal

"I Am a Strange Loop is thoughtful, amusing and infectiously enthusiastic."--Bloombergnews

"I Am a Strange Loop scales some lofty conceptual heights, but it remains very personal, and it's deeply colored by the facts of Hofstadter's later life. In 1993 Hofstadter's wife Carol died suddenly of a brain tumor at only 42, leaving him with two young children to care for.... I Am a Strange Loop is a work of rigorous thinking, but it's also an extraordinary tribute to the memory of romantic love: The Year of Magical Thinking for mathematicians."--Time

"I Am a Strange Loop is vintage Hofstadter: earnest, deep, overflowing with ideas, building its argument into the experience of reading it-for if our souls can incorporate those of others, then I Am a Strange Loopcan transmit Hofstadter's into ours. And indeed, it is impossible to come away from this book without having introduced elements of his point of view into our own. It may not make us kinder or more compassionate, but we will never look at the world, inside or out, in the same way again."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Nearly thirty years after his best-selling book Gödel, Escher, Bach, cognitive scientist and polymath Douglas Hofstadter has returned to his extraordinary theory of self."--New Scientist

"His new book, as brilliant and provocative as earlier ones, is a colorful mix of speculations with passages of autobiography."--Martin Gardiner

Starts good, last third is illogical magical thinking

From the outset it seems to be avoiding many if the pitfalls of other books on consciousness, and by the middle presents some easy to understand and explain different ways of looking at it.

Then it wanders off into thinking having heard stories from someone else equates somehow to that person being inside someone else, as if memories or experiences would telepathically be understood by the person who shared a story. The book fully mistakes the inaccurate version of someone else in our head for that person, in a way fiction a century ago as One, No One and One Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello better understood and explained the absurd disconnect. It treats having the personality traits of someone else for being that person, as if we could punish a deceased historical figure by some modern person acting enough like them, or as if cumulative lead poisoning affecting personality traits somehow means a person being kindly treated isn't the same continuous self in there. It oversimplifies a situation, then takes a wild leap with conclusions that clearly aren't connected with basic observation.

I've kept listening long after it slipped off the rails in hopes of finding additional useful ideas like those from the start and middle, but it's getting harder to reach the end.

I will say the start and middle made this worth picking up, I'm just not sure I'd suggest finishing it.

it will make you think about thinking

This took a while to get through and some of the material is a bit dense. I found several a ha moments and I appreciated the discussion about symbols. I read this after his essences book and I think it was a nice follow on. You don't have to agree with everything in there, and in fact the author allows for that. The point is to reason it out and you might pick a different side. whatever... at least you're thinking about it.

Disagree with much, but still recommend

I came into this with an elementary level of knowledge in cognitive science and philosophy and a much stronger background in computer science. I remain unconvinced by many of the points and found myself disagreeing frequently. However, that doesn't detract from the work at all—it's important to stretch your mind and critically examine everything. Worth the read for the mental exercise of listening to things you don't agree with. The author goes out of his way a bit too much to take himself away from the ivory tower of academia to speak with the serfs. A lot of "I find the following pedantic myself, _but actually_, ..." statements to presumably attempt to remove himself from a perceived elitist perspective. Whether genuine or not, it is noticeable and a bit off-putting.

Must reading for thinking persons

Highly rewarding ( even on second reading with 3 year interval) for motivated learner and thinkers.

interesting but too long

some interesting topics that could be explained without as much fluff. The book is partially a long list of examples of things that explain a simple idea, overly repeated.